


Planetglow

by Deannie



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Child slavery, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, before the kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: The Mighty Galactic Empire deserved all the bad it got—their rules were brutally simple: Invade and take, imprison and starve, kill those who take offense. The Empire had already driven at least half a dozen civilizations to near extinction and it was barely a decade old.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Planetglow

**Mita, Lothal sector** **  
****Imperial Year 11**

Kanan Jarrus was bored. Or as bored as he ever really got these days. Working for a fledgling rebellion kept you on your toes for the most part.

But right now, Hera was just bartering, which meant, for him, that he stayed silent and in the background. The woman was fierce about her deal making. She’d found out there was a Twi’lek trader carrying rycrit meat here in the market, and Kanan knew they’d be in for some extensive negotiations. Hera wasn’t much of a cook normally, but her traditional rycrit stew was pretty good with some fotouo root thrown in.

It was just nice, for a while, for rycrit and fotouo root to be their two biggest concerns. Mita was far from anything that caused much of a fuss. The nearest point of interest was the TIE fighter construction facility on Lothal, half the sector away. There was a small Imperial outpost here on Mita, with a half-dozen TIEs, but this planet was mostly used by the Empire and everyone else for doing what they were doing now: supply runs.

Of course, Hera’s contact, the ever-mysterious Fulcrum, _had_ arranged for them to pick up a shipment here and bluff their way past a barricade to deliver supplies to one of the nearby systems, but right this moment, they were just a couple of travelers out shopping. They’d get back to stealing the Emperor’s things tomorrow. 

The Mighty Galactic Empire deserved all the bad it got—their rules were brutally simple: Invade and take, imprison and starve, kill those who take offense. The Empire had already driven at least half a dozen civilizations to near extinction and it was barely a decade old.

“STOP!” 

Without looking like he was looking around, Kanan looked around, hunting for the source of the shout. If a stormtrooper was shouting, it was usually at him. Which was unfair, this time, because they weren’t even doing anything illegal yet.

“Get him!”

Well, now, that sounded bad, too. Kanan zeroed in and watched a huge purple mass of a male (he thought it was a male) dart into the shadows across the street. Took him a minute to recognize the species, but only because there weren’t technically supposed to be any of them left.

Lasan had fallen more than two standard years ago. To date, it was the largest example of the Empire wiping out those who opposed them; there was word that they’d left not a single Lasat alive.

_This guy is certainly alive and kicking._

Kanan watched two stormtroopers charge the huge male. They had their heads slammed together for their trouble.

The Lasat had a rifle like Kanan had never seen, and knew how to use it. With the breathing room gained by the head bashing, he squeezed off a few shots and two more stormtroopers went down quickly. The Lasat took off— 

—to get dropped from behind by a lucky shot that grazed his shoulder and sent him facedown in the dirt. A stormtrooper had to hit something some time, right?

“Cuff him while he’s down,” the stormtroopers’ leader said to the three remaining troopers. “We have standing orders to send all Lasat to Central for processing and interrogation.”

Kanan’s hand settled on his blaster. Interrogation was probably going to be done by a firing squad.

They started approaching the male, and Kanan couldn’t stand it. Lasat were built like Juggernauts. If the guy could just have a second to regroup, he’d be able to get out on his own.

“Hera,” he murmured quietly, breaking into her negotiations as unobtrusively as possible, “I’ll be right back.”

She was predictably not amused. “Kanan….” 

But he was gone before she could finish speaking his name. He sprinted as quickly as was prudent and fetched up about fifty meters ahead of the group of occupied troopers, neatly hiding himself in the shadows. He and Hera were planning a smuggling operation, after all. Wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself.

The trooper who knelt down gingerly to put the restraints on the Lasat was greeted by a blast from Kanan’s gun before he could finish his job. The next trooper got a face full of wide-awake and very enraged Lasat. 

Kanan shrugged. _Easier than I thought._

Except that the Lasat was maybe not as wide-awake as he thought and, in loping unsteadily away from the scene, managed to slam into Kanan, knocking him into view.

“HEY!” Kanan yelled, picking himself up as the Lasat did the same and running for it. “I was _helping_ you!”

“Don’t talk,” the Lasat replied breathlessly. “Just run!”

Great. Hera was going to kill him.

**Iria Moon 4-2, “Hilotti Prime”** **  
****Iria System, Midnight sector**

“Move it along!”

Meen Kotto picked up speed, wheeling his cart as fast as he could as he headed for the refinery with his load of ore. The stormtroopers didn’t hit you often, but if you irked them too much, well… There were consequences. He pushed his long white hair out of his face and kept moving.

“Quick,” Daka, the older boy behind him, called. “Don’t want to give him any more reason to hassle us.”

As if Cynic needed a reason.

Meen rushed on, ignoring the pain in his hands where he gripped the cart handle tight. Sometimes he wished he was older, so they’d send him to the mine like this, full time. Even as hard as all this hauling ore was, at least he wouldn’t have to work on the tiny little tech pieces until his fingers bled, the black blood running down his silk grey skin. He didn’t even know what the things they built did. Just what would happen to him and the others if they didn’t keep building them.

He reached the door to the refinery’s receiving room and took a precious second to rest, in the shadows away from Cynic, who was definitely the worst of the stormtrooper guards. 

Meen looked up at the sky, knowing the troopers would call it night soon. 

The planet he and his people called Hilotti, a huge gas giant of the purest blue, took up half the sky. The moon he stood on, “Prime,” was between it and their star at the moment, so the days were unending; flaming Iria reflected off the giant, lighting the sky with a suffusing blue glow even after the star itself passed to the other side of the moon. 

The stormtroopers weren’t from a moon like theirs. They stuck to their own schedule. When the star went down, it was night. They hated the planetglow—made sure the village was locked up tight and they were safe in their barracks through the night.

“Come on,” Daka said quietly, ushering him along. “Let’s get this to the piles and get back.”

The refinery was the last place anyone wanted to stay for long. 

The Imperial invaders didn’t have droids anymore. It was funny that Prime’s magnetic crust was used to make circuitry when the dust itself could ruin machines so quickly. The Empire had come in and set up a huge mechanized factory and mine and refinery with dozens of droids—and every mech in the place had ground to a halt after just a few years. The dust did organics no good either, and all the invaders ever let Meen and his people have to protect themselves were cloths to cover their faces.

One of the consequences of not moving fast enough was to be sent to work in the refinery. They could only send you there for a few days at a time, and if you got sent too many times in the time it took Prime to trip around Hilotti, well… You didn’t see it trip around again. Gollon was the girl in charge of the refinery at the moment, and when she coughed, it was like death rattles.

Once they’d dropped their loads in the receiving area, they had to return to the mines. Meen hated them. He hated everything about the invaders and what they’d done to this moon. He heard a little girl—Fifa, it sounded like—calling out, a happiness in her voice that would be gone by the time she was Meen’s age. Meen looked to the shanward side of the world, where Fifa and the other very youngs were headed in from their harvesting. The small jungle there still looked like the home the older youngers spoke of, but all it was now was a place for the stormtroopers to exploit, making the very youngs do their work for them. Not too far into the jungle was a wall of electrostatic wires that could kill you with a touch. Powered by the moon’s magnetic field, it was about the only technological thing that survived outside the clean room, besides the guns and whips of the soldiers. It defined the extent of Meen’s world and he hated it, too.

He rolled his cart back toward the mine entrance, looking now at the water that ran along, thick and wide and unswimmable, to the shaw-ward side of the world. Off in the distance, when the dust wasn’t thick, you could see the Vasty Out There. Sollos said it was as big as their side of the world, and it was green and lush and beautiful. Years ago, so the older youngers told, all of Prime was like that. Now, here, there was only red dust and stormtroopers and fences and them. 

There’d been older olders once, too. His sister remembered them. She helped tell the stories of when the parents tried to cast out the invaders and of what the invaders did to them in return. He himself was young enough to have toddled in the occupied village’s creche before he knew anything about the world. Hibbee and the older kids—the ones who’d started making their own babies who lived in the creche now—remembered their moms and dads. Remembered what had happened to them.

Meen wondered what that was like.

He stopped abruptly as Daka was slammed to the ground by the butt of Cynic’s rifle, stopping their trip toward the mine.

“Gumming up the works again, Daka?” Cynic asked coldly. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the little slow down you had going last month.”

Daka stood, gingerly licking the blood off his lip. “We had a fever run through and you know it, Cynic,” he said quietly. “Fewer workers means fewer circuits.”

Cynic prodded him again, though not hard enough to drop him this time. “You’ll have one less worker permanently if you don’t meet your quota this month.”

Daka kept silent and moved on. Meen knew he was scared. If Daka hadn’t been one of the oldest youngers, and the one in charge of the mine itself, Cynic would have sent him to the refinery to die weeks ago. Here for just half a year now, the trooper had arrived mean and gotten meaner as time went on. It seemed his favorite thing to do was hit.

 _One day_ , Meen thought, _I’m going to take that rifle and lay_ him _low._

_One day..._

************

Hibbee Tak’s pink eyes watched from the Imperial office as the guards herded his people back to their chained in village, calling a halt to the day as the star left the sky. He was twenty trips around Hilotti, by his own reckoning, and he’d had ten of those under the Empire’s thumb, which was ten too many. His gentle one, Sollos, was going to have their first baby soon, and he’d sworn to her that that child would be born free.

And now, finally, he had a way to make it happen.

He hoped.

“Tak?” Jinta called.

Jinta was the current leader of the Imperial invaders, but he wasn’t a stormtrooper. Short and skinny, with grey hair and deep brown skin and eyes, Jinta was surely the oldest man on Hilloti Prime. He hadn’t been here for the purge of the olders, replacing the man who had destroyed Hibbee’s life so completely just three years ago. 

Jinta was efficient, and he was knowledgeable, and he had learned, as Hibbee grew, that he could trust the young man. Not because Hibbee had any love for the Empire, but because Hibbee would do what he could to help his people. 

And he would, though not in the way the Empire intended. Prime had no use for the Empire—they hadn’t had any use for the Republic either, his dad used to say. Prime was too far away from everything. Too remote and too simple. No tech, no droids. Just green and lush as far as you could see.

They’d had another home once, among the stars, full of tech and machines. Full of war and death, like the invaders brought. Seeking peace, the elders before now had ventured from that place to find Prime and settled here, content to scuttle their ships and live their lives. They told the stories of the times long ago and strove to learn their lessons. He knew of war and hate and greed, but Hibbee had harbored none of it. Until the Empire came.

The technology the Empire brought with them was nothing Primers had seen since their own landing. They were overwhelmed by it, devastated as the world they knew was taken from them, their jungle plowed and turned and burned and fenced away from them, until all that was left was the Patch that fed them and the Vasty Out There, unreachable beyond the sea. Meedee Tak, Hibbee’s father, had known the stories of long ago, too. He made sure Hibbee learned the invaders’ ways. 

“Someday,” he’d told him. “Your knowledge of their ways and their ignorance of ours will free our people.” But not before his father and all their olders had been massacred.

Hibbee remembered. He remembered and he told the younger children, because one day, very soon, he was going to make sure that the Empire left Prime. And he and his people would be free to make their planet what it had once been. He had no desire for war, but he would not settle for less than peace, no matter the cost.

“Hibbee Tak, are you listening?” Jinta’s irritated words shook Hibbee from his thoughts.

“Sorry, Jinta,” he said quietly. “Just thinking.”

“About that girl of yours, I’ll wager,” Jinta joked. He thought he was Hibbee’s friend. And Hibbee let him think it. _If you are to slay the enemy, let him grow accustomed to your blade._ “She’ll be having the wee one any time now.”

Soon.

“Well, I’m nearly finished with you for the day anyway,” Jinta told him, as if doing him a favor. 

“I’d like to finish the tests on the latest batch of circuits.” Hibbee had always been eager to learn, good at what he did, indispensable for a man like Jinta, who wasn’t keen to do his own work if he could prevent it. The oldest older had taught Hibbee more about technology and the galaxy than anyone on his planet had known in a handful of generations, and Hibbee would happily use it against him. “Do you have time?” Hibbee wheedled. “Won’t take long.”

The room they kept clean with blowers and filters housed all the electronics for the base. The communications unit and circuit testers and chargers for what little tech survived the magnetic dust long enough to be useful; all in one place. Jinta was required to accompany any of the older youngers when they entered the room, but Hibbee knew Jinta trusted him. He’d let him work there alone before and been satisfied that Hibbee had done only what he said he’d done.

The Empire was not wise, and Hibbee would make use of that.

Jinta frowned. Hibbee held his breath. The man was old, and frequently tired. Hilotti Prime was apparently no one’s dream posting (so Jinta and the guards said—often), and Jinta felt that a good bottle of matta and a long night’s sleep were always due him. Babysitting a test of circuits in a room no Primer should have unfettered access to wouldn’t appeal.

Hibbee pressed. “The supply run will be here in a week,” he reminded the old man. “They’ll want to have as large a shipment as they can this time.” To make up for the one Hibbee and the other older youngers had made sure was light. They’d been pushing the schedule as much as they could to put pressure on the Imperials. Hibbee knew Jinta’s superiors were chafing at the reduced output.

Jinta growled in a peevish way. “Run your tests and secure the room behind you,” he said. “It’s night time, sort of. I need to get into the dark.” Jinta hated the summer on Prime. Too much light, he said. Night should be dark.

Hibbee smiled sympathetically, hoping his wildly beating heart didn’t give him away. “I won’t be long. Sollos will be expecting me home.”

“Don’t keep a pregnant woman waiting, boy,” Jinta scolded him. “They can be fierce.”

“I know, sir,” he said quietly. Jinta left the main building and as the door shut, Hibbee smiled a more brutal grin. “I know.”

He looked out to see the guards, exhausted by the long summer day, lolling a bit. Paying Jinta no heed and him no heed. The time was now.

He headed for the clean room, and the communications device within…

************

Cynic sat in the small tent where the guards ate, and he glared at the little village under lock and key, his helmet on the table beside him. It was oh-dark-thirty and it was nowhere near dark. Damn moon. He hated the way everything looked during what the locals called planetglow. People were ghosts and buildings were spectres...

One day soon, he’d get off this damn soggy rock. He was owed. The Empire owed him. These snot-nosed brats owed him. He drained his entire mug of matta brew and refilled it for good measure.

He’d done his damn job, hadn’t he? Fought alongside those skrogging Jedi until they’d turned on him, left half his battalion dead in their wake. Hell, half his brothers all over the galaxy were dead. And what had he gotten? Aged out of active duty.

From defender of the Grand Republic to babysitter.

Skrogging kids.

And that Daka. He was up to something. Him and those other older youngers or whatever they called themselves. Cynic knew it. Oh, the other troopers—the soft regular humans that were polluting the whole damn army? They didn’t know spit. Couldn’t find their asses with their shit. But Cynic knew.

And someday soon, he’d catch that little scrapper out and expose him. Maybe the damn Empire’d see his use then, wouldn’t they?

More matta brew both stoked his anger and sapped his strength, and it wasn’t long before his head hit the table and he was dreaming of a rebellion he could squash.

************

**Mita, Lothal Sector**

“Still not sure why she’s going out there on her own.”

Kanan Jarrus smiled, taking another long sip of his drink. The ale was bitter and warm, but it was ale. “Believe me, Hera can take care of herself.” The dive bar was rowdy and ignorant around them. The perfect place to hide in plain sight.

“Didn’t say she couldn’t,” his companion grunted. 

Garazeb Orrelios had abruptly gone from Imperial fugitive to the newest addition to the _Ghost_ ’s little crew. On a provisional basis. After running into each other—literally—Kanan and Zeb had picked each other up and taken off and about twenty minutes later, Kanan had caught his breath and introduced himself. They’d worked their way around the local patrols to get back to the _Ghost_ , where Hera was waiting for them, hands on hips. She’d nearly killed Kanan, after making sure he was all right, and given Zeb a long, calculating look. 

She liked what she saw. Apparently they could use another smuggler on the upcoming trip. Which was fine with Kanan. He had a good feeling about Zeb. But then the whole mission was suddenly delayed by an emergency call from Fulcrum. And here they were, waiting for Hera to finish her secret meeting.

“How long did she say it was going to take?” Zeb asked. It was funny to see a male who towered over nearly everyone be so uneasy. But there were more Imps around than it seemed Zeb was used to, and contrary to what Kanan had always believed about them, Lasat weren’t any better at absorbing laser blasts than anyone else. Zeb’s back was still tender—he kept adjusting the large cloak he was wearing to hide himself, as if the fabric must have been chafing his wound.

“As long as it takes,” Kanan said.

“And this is the way you do things?” 

Kanan sighed. Why was he always having to explain this? “If everyone knows everything—”

“Then everyone’ll hang, yeah I get that.” Zeb looked down at him. Huh. Nice to see somebody got it. “But why’s it her that does the knowing?”

The answer to that was easy. “She’s smarter than me.”

Zeb took that in stride and drained half his own ale in a single swallow. 

“So where’re you from, Kanan Jarrus?” he asked after a few minutes. “Feels like I haven’t learned much about either of you.”

Kanan could say the same of Zeb, but he didn’t. All they knew about him was that he’d been a member of the Honor Guard of Lasan (that was what had actually cemented things for Hera—and gotten Kanan out of trouble for abandoning the supply run), he had been on Lasan when it was destroyed, and he had escaped. He hated the Empire and he liked sabacc. 

“I’m not from anywhere,” Kanan offered. “I know more smugglers than honest citizens and I’m a fair thief.”

“Uh huh.” Zeb clearly wasn’t buying it. “And you ended up with Hera, how exactly? Being that she’s all anti-Empire and going out of her way to help people every ten minutes.”

Kanan shrugged. “She’s prettier than me, too.” 

“Well, that’s always nice to hear,” Hera murmured sweetly as she slipped into a chair at their table. “Are you boys getting along?”

“I get along with everyone,” Kanan averred, smiling. 

Hera gave him the Look.

“Yes,” he replied. “We’re getting along.”

“Good. Let’s get back to the _Ghost_. My contact had some interesting information.”

She got up to leave, and Kanan leaned over to Zeb. “This is where she figures out how to get us in trouble.”

“I may not have your enormous ears, but I’m not deaf.”

Zeb grunted his amusement and followed the pretty lady.

********

Hera slipped the data disk into Chopper’s port and the droid lit up the common room of the _Ghost_ with a hologram of a huge blue planet with four large moons.

“Iria-4,” she announced. “In the Midnight Sector.”

“Well that’s remote,” Kanan griped.

“It has one habitable moon, designated Iria Moon 4-2. The locals call it Hilotti Prime.” The holo switched to an orbital image of the surface of Prime: a lush, overgrown jungle with a deep purple sea. “The planet has a surface comprised of thick magnetic soil, giving it incredibly rich vegetation. And making it the perfect place for the Empire to mine for forran-623.”

Another image: This one from the ground and grainy, as if the camera were on the verge of failure. That ground was nothing but blood-red dust, the only green that could be seen was a cusp of the land beyond that purple sea. A collection of buildings were merely shells of former dwellings, hodge-podged together with scraps where necessary. The village was encircled by razor wired fencing. The hill to the other side of the image had been cut into, a gaping maw showing it functioned as a mine, while the space between the two extremes housed a large portable factory, a main building, and a barracks. A map appeared next to the image, rough and hand drawn but with detailed notes in neat, careful Aurebesh.

“Ten years ago, the Empire landed and enslaved the population, forcing them to mine the forran for them—by hand, since the magnetic field of the planet makes technology use dicey.” She could feel her lekku stiffen in anger. “After three years, there was an attempted uprising, which failed. They killed the adult population.”

Kanan blanched. “All of them?”

“But then who’s…” Zeb growled. “They got the kids doing the work!”

Hera nodded angrily. “Six weeks ago, someone from the planet reached out on a low-band frequency, text only, asking for help. It took a while for our network to sync up with him and ask for more information. Another databurst was sent a week ago.”

“According to the contact on planet, there are only about 120 children left—mining is hard on even young bodies.” Her lekku hurt from the outrage. “The oldest of them looks to be in his late teens. And smart. Two days ago, my contact received this.”

A grey-skinned humanoid boy with brilliant pink eyes and long, straight, bone white hair stood before them in holographic form.

 _“My name is Hibbee Tak,”_ the young man said. _“I am the oldest of the older youngers of Hilotti Prime. I don’t know if those who responded before will get this—I’m using the non-Imperial frequency you sent. Figured out how to send a holo, I hope. Scrambled the signal as best I could.”_ He took a deep breath and calmed himself. _“We had been slowing production as much as we dared, in the hopes of pressuring them into leaving our world, but they remain. And they have the power to do to us what they did to our parents. Their superiors have demanded a full shipment as soon as possible and I cannot risk my people by delaying anymore.”_ He leaned into the hologram and seemed to be pressing buttons on a panel before him. _“This is all I have. Please. If there is anyone out there. Please help us.”_

The holographic message ended and Chopper switched off his viewer.

“They’re Flineen,” Kanan murmured.

Hera nodded. “Fulcrum said the same. I’m not familiar with them.”

Kanan’s face took on that pain from his past. “I knew a Flineen girl growing up.” He blinked and the sadness was gone. “Maybe they’re a settlement that got cut off from Ytlinan for some reason? They’re a very close-knit culture. They wouldn’t have let this happen if they could stop it.”

Zeb’s voice held a similar sadness to Kanan’s eyes. “Sometimes you can’t stop it,” he whispered.

Hera watched him closely. She didn’t know Zeb yet, not really. He’d said all the right things about hating the Empire and wanting to help “kick ‘em in their kriffin' asses”, but she didn’t know if this was what he thought she’d meant. He was already wanted, and doing this wouldn’t gain him any favors if they were caught.

After a moment Zeb looked up at her impatiently. “So give us the plan, then. Let’s get on with it.”

Hera smiled. 

“No skrogging way we’re letting that go on,” he continued in an undertone, which got Kanan smiling, too.

“Along with the map and the message, Hibbee Tak sent information on the Imperial contingent on the planet.” Here came the hard part. “There are 30 stormtroopers and a single leader. An older human named Jinta.”

Both men were silent a moment.

“Thirty’s a lot,” Kanan finally said. 

“Thirty’s not so bad,” Zeb disagreed. But he still seemed a little nervous.

“According to the data he sent, a supply transport is scheduled to land on the planet in three days.” She had Chopper bring up a holoshot of the Imperial depot right here on Mita. This was why _she’d_ been asked to take this mission. Right place, right time. A long blue ship, square and utilitarian, stood in the forefront. “ _This_ supply transport. Chopper confirms that the manifest lists supplies for the Iria moon.”

“Is that going to hold 120 kids?” Kanan asked reasonably.

“We can pack the _Ghost_ , too,” Hera replied. “I don’t know what good air support will do during the rescue, but I’ll be keeping watch, as always.”

Kanan looked up at her speculatively. “And do we really need to deliver those supplies to a moon we’re going to leave empty anyway?”

Hera grinned. This was one of the many reasons she kept Kanan around. “I’ll contact Fulcrum and see if we can have a ship meet us to transfer it.”

Kanan leaned back in his seat and grinned. “I do love a good heist.” 

************

Sollos looked up from her tying as Hibbee slipped into their curtained alcove. The invaders hadn’t stopped the Primers from trying to rebuild their village as best they could, but they didn’t provide them with materials to do so, either. Many buildings were nothing more than rubble strapped together with leftover bits of supply crates and broken mining equipment. 

The creche, which had four babies now and was expecting more than just hers in the near future, was their best maintained building, and all pregnant girls were moved there as their time of confinement drew toward an end. The population would be growing, flourishing, even, but for the number they lost to the dust.

“Did you manage it?” she asked, taking the cup of goiga tea he held out to her. 

Hibbee nodded. “Now we wait.”

“Wait to get caught,” Sollos fretted. But what choice did they have? She looked down at the blanket she was tying for their child: scraps and strings. That was what they had to offer the next generation….

“Meen is doing well,” Hibbee told her, running a hand soothingly along the intricate braids that Flineen girls used to distinguish themselves from their boys. As her pregnancy continued, Sollos’s once-flat mammaries were growing larger and larger, distinguishing her further as they made ready to feed this new life.

“They’re monsters to ask a boy ten trips old to mine,” she growled.

“He wanted to do it,” Hibbee argued. “To help you.” 

He only had to help because those _boggak_ invaders had offered them a fool’s choice: a ten-trip boy or a fully pregnant girl. One of them would have to work the mines.

As if he’d heard them talking about him, Meen slid in through the curtain at just that moment, scrubbed clean as he always was when he came to see her. “Hi!” he whispered, as if the night stole his voice. “How is the baby?”

Sollos was lost in the face of her little brother’s love and enthusiasm. He was all she had left—their parents had died years ago, their sisters and brother were lost to the mine and the refinery…

“It’s good,” she whispered back, reaching out and placing his hand on her stomach. “Been kicking all day.”

“She’ll be a fighter, like you,” Meen said, looking up at Hibbee. Looking up _to_ Hibbee. Even before Sollos and Hibbee had pledged to each other, Meen had looked to the oldest younger as a natural father figure.

“She, huh?” Hibbee asked. “I thought yesterday you said it would be a he.”

Meen shook his head in embarrassment and Sollos had to laugh. “I… changed my mind,” Meen replied.

Hibbee patted his shoulder. “We’ll all see soon,” he promised. He caught Sollos’s eye and she prayed his next words were true. “About everything.”

*************

Zeb had stationed himself in the cantina most of the bucketheads frequented, settling into a back corner, out of the light. His robe was large enough and concealing enough that he hoped he wouldn’t be recognized for what he was. If he was caught, killed, that was one less Lasat to remember Lasan for the future. 

Which brought him to wondering about those children on Prime. At least they weren’t alone in the universe. If Kanan was right, they could probably scoop the kids up and drop them right into their own people again. Made him ache for Lasan. Made him want to do whatever he could to save this group of children from his own fate.

He took a sip of his drink and forced the past from his mind.

Kanan was out finding the crew of that supply transport. Was a dicey job, dressing up as a stormtrooper, but the human seemed up for it and Hera had said something about him using his “special talents” to get the job done. Zeb had no idea what that meant, but he figured they knew what they were doing. Hopefully Kanan could both find them and lure them in here for the next step in the plan.

And speaking of… 

He’d been waiting for an hour, and now she finally came in. Even for a Twi’lek, Hera was attractive. Very attractive. Dressed in a deep red headwrap and matching halter, with soft black pants cut low to show off her midriff, she looked like a woman who got paid for her nights. He almost hadn’t recognized her until she winked at him.

The bucketheads, of course, took notice of her, but she played the room like a pro, waiting for just the right client.

Zeb was impressed. He’d never been much for covert operations in the Guard, but Hera seemed born to it. 

At last, Kanan sauntered in the door, looking like he belonged there—belonged anywhere, in fact. Hera pretended a quick interest, and he blushed, but he also looked at the door as a pair of stormtroopers came in, looking a little… stiff. Zeb wasn’t sure what was off about them, but… something. Like they couldn’t quite remember why they’d decided to come here.

Hera abandoned her interest in Kanan immediately, and lounged at the bar where the newly arrived troopers had just taken seats and removed their helmets.

Lasat had very good hearing, so Zeb listened from across the room.

“Two Kordoba ales,” the trooper nearest Hera ordered.

“I could use a drink, too,” Hera said quietly. 

Zeb realized now what had been weird about her from the moment they met. She’d shed her Ryl accent at some point in her life before this. Adding back the traditional lilt made her playacting all the more convincing.

The trooper looked up at her for a moment, grinned like an idiot, and called out to the bartender. “One more.”

“Thank you so much,” Hera purred. Her lekku were saying something. Zeb didn’t know what, but he’d never seen brain tails move like they were right now. Was kind of hypnotic. 

She continued making small talk, priming their targets. On a whim, Zeb looked over at Kanan to see how he was taking all this. You didn’t have to be a genius to know right off that the human and Twi’lek were mates, or maybe just wanted to be. Kanan didn’t look thrilled. Zeb watched him take a deep breath and a long draught of his ale and just observe with a frown on his face.

“It’s awfully crowded here, isn’t it?” Hera was saying finally. Suns, she was playing this to the hilt, wasn’t she? “Maybe we could… go?”

Didn’t take asking twice for those two. Hera sashayed out the door, the two bucketheads following like lovesick nunas. Zeb stood up and slipped out the back door, heading toward their intercept point.

He shadowed the trio silently as they reached the alley he and Kanan had scouted earlier in the day. There were no cameras, no lights. A nice place to arrange a little nap for these sleemos.

“Where are we going?” one of the troopers asked.

“On a wonderful ride,” Hera whispered. Then, quick as a wink, she whipped out a tiny breathing mask and set off a sleep bomb.

“Neat and tidy,” he complimented her, sliding out of the darkness as the gas dissipated quickly..

Kanan dropped from the top of the two-story building next to them and almost gave Zeb a heart attack. Who knew the human could move like that?

“Let’s get going,” Kanan said, all business. 

_And jealousy,_ Zeb thought with a grin. 

Kanan strode to the storage bin Zeb had left there this afternoon and popped it open. “Let’s get them in and us out.”

Zeb picked up one of the bucketheads and dropped him, harder than strictly necessary, into the bin. In kind, Kanan slammed the head of his burden into the wall on the way to his resting place.

“Kanan,” Hera scolded. 

“Oops.” Kanan wasn’t sorry in the least. 

With the troopers in the bin, it was an easy task to slip away separately. Zeb delivered the bin to the _Ghost_ an hour later and Hera and Kanan were waiting for him, both back in their usual clothes. Kanan looked miffed and Hera looked like a long-suffering mate. Zeb didn’t chuckle even a little.

“Where are we taking these two?” he asked as Hera secured the cargo ramp.

“A little out of the way place I know,” she replied.

Out of the way turned out to be the middle of a field, half a day’s walk just to get to nowhere, much less somewhere.

“You’re not very nice, Hera,” Zeb told her.

She smiled. “Neither were they.”

“The shuttle is scheduled to leave in about five hours,” Kanan announced, walking into the cockpit looking like a buckethead. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous and Zeb can jump ships before we go on to Prime.”

He wasn’t sure how Kanan would get into the base and onto the shuttle—even with the creds he’d stolen off those troopers. All he knew was that things had worked out so far, and he was damned if he’d let those kids down if he could help it.

If he had his way, the Empire would never have another slave.

**********

“What if Jinta finds out you sent it?” Daka asked, leaning forward tensely. The five Leaders of Prime sat on the floor in what had once been their place of worship. The Universal was still prayed to, of course, but the house they’d built for it in generations past was little more than rubble. The guards rarely entered the village, but when they did, they left the temple mostly to itself. The oldest of the youngers made sure that enough people went in and out of it on a regular basis to make the five of them sitting cross-legged together here seem normal.

“I wiped the communications log,” Hibbee told him calmly. “This morning I received a short burst on the low-frequency band. Someone will come.”

“You hope,” Krollor said, shaking her head and sending her braids bouncing. She was frightened. They all were. Years of planning a rebellion meant little in the face of the memory of what had happened the last time.

“Would you rather Gossol grow up like this?” he asked of her and Daka’s one-trip-old daughter. “In the dust? With _them_?”

“What can we do once they arrive?” Jida asked, his voice hard with anger. “I have tried and tried to open the box that holds their weapons.”

Hibbee knew. “We hope they have more luck.”

“Luck is not going to be enough,” Gollon told him. And then she coughed and none of them could keep from wincing. As much as this uprising was for the babes, it was for Gollon as well—for all those who were steps closer to the darkness every day.

“No, it isn’t,” Hibbee agreed, helping her to her feet. “So we’ll pray, as well.”

Gollon grinned fatalistically, gathering her long braids into a high knot on her head as she prepared to get to work. “We’re in the right place for it.”

The bell rang to start the day, and the five leaders stood united.

“We continue as we have,” Hibbee ordered. “I am preparing the shipment for their superiors today.” He looked at Daka. “Make sure the mine functions as it should. We want no reason for them to tighten their hold on us now.” Daka nodded and headed to his work, only to be stopped by Hibbee’s voice once again. “And don’t anger Cynic any more than you have to.”

“I appear to anger Cynic by breathing.” Daka shook his head as he walked out.

“We will meet again at planetglow,” Hibbee commanded calmly. “For now, be obedient. Hopefully I’ll get news today from our helpers in the stars.”

“Hibbee,” Krollor called as they all headed to their stations. Hibbee stopped and turned to speak to the creche-keeper and village healer. 

“Sollos will give birth soon,” she told him. “She grows restless and swollen. Soon she won’t be able to care for the other youngests.”

Hibbee nodded. “All the more reason to pray this is over soon.”

***********

The meetup in space, a system away from Mita, had gone off without a hitch and they’d transferred the bulk of their supplies to a slovenly looking barge that would make sure someone who wasn’t the Empire got use of it. They kept the guns and thermal detonators of course. Most of them.

After that, Zeb and Kanan had talked of the ops the human and Twi’lek had run against the Empire while Zeb was just trying to survive after the destruction of his world. Maybe now was the time to make better use of his talents. Fight back properly. He said as much.

“We could always use you,” Kanan said quietly, as the blue warp of hyperspace twirled madly around them. “I am sorry. For Lasan.”

Zeb had been glad not to have to talk about himself, but he knew it couldn’t last forever.

“The Empire did it to make an example of us,” Zeb stated quietly. “They skroggin' did that all right. I don’t plan to let them do it again if I can help it.”

“We’ll get the kids out,” Kanan promised. Like he was promising it to Zeb personally. For a guy Zeb had taken as a do-gooding mercenary and nothing else, Kanan seemed to know all the right things to say.

“Yeah,” Zeb agreed, making a promise of his own. “We will.”

“Coming up on Hilotti,” Kanan announced, dropping them out of hyperspace. 

“All right boys,” Hera announced over their private comms. “I’ll keep the _Ghost_ on the far side of the gas giant.”

“Time to make yourself scarce, Zeb,” Kanan commanded, slipping the stormtrooper’s helmet onto his head to complete his outfit. The human had obviously been military at some point, and he was suddenly serious about running the ground assault. “Quick in and out,” Kanan outlined. “Lay out the stormtroopers, load up the kids, and we’re gone. We’ll call when we need you, Spectre-2.”

“Understood, Spectre-1,” Hera replied. “Good luck.”

Hera was the general of this outfit, but she clearly didn’t have to have control of every little thing. It was the way Zeb had led—keep your men sharp and let them do their jobs.

It had just been a while since he’d been one of the men. So maybe he grumbled a little as he crammed himself behind the last crate in the back of the transport. The one that contained a lot of little things that went boom.

He listened carefully as Kanan communicated with the base, landed, and _finally_ opened the door. 

“Supplies for the processing camp,” Kanan announced curtly.

“Shouldn’t there be two of you?” another voice asked.

“Yeah, there should have been, but they only sent me,” Kanan growled, playing the part of a peeved Imperial lackey. “That’s the problem with a tiny garrison like that. One guy goes out, you just make do.”

“At least you get to take off again when you’re reloaded,” the other voice replied, long-suffering. “This is Tak. He’ll be supervising the offload.”

 _Perfect_ , Zeb thought, hoping Tak meant Hibbee Tak. _Maybe this’ll go off without a hitch after all._

Kanan didn’t say a word about it, just started bullying the kid around like he was a real buckethead. “Get this stuff offloaded as soon as possible,” he ordered. “I don’t want to stay here forever.” 

And then his voice dropped and he was clearly talking to the kid and the kid alone. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to, either, do you Hibbee?”

There was a gasp, and Zeb risked sneaking a look at the front of the transport. Hibbee Tak was Kanan’s height, but maybe half his weight, all spindly limbs and shining hair that reached to his waist. Looked even younger in person.

“Now, you’re going to offload the ship and confirm it’s empty, and then I’m going to make friends with the local security force. Don’t go opening any of these crates or we’re going to have a problem.” Kanan raised his voice, though he didn’t need to bother. “And anyone you see sneaking out of this transport was never there.”

Hibbee nodded.

“Jida!” he called. “Meen!” Zeb shifted so he could see the two boys approaching. One looked nearly Hibbee’s age, the other far too much younger. “Get these crates to the receiving area!” His voice dropped. “Jida has been trying to access the armory by the barracks, but he can’t open the locks.” Crates began moving, and Zeb scooted back into the corner to stay hidden should any bucketheads decide to supervise the supervisor. 

“We’ll take care of that,” Kanan promised. And they would. Take out the armoury and they’d take out the barracks, too. It’d make a fine explosion and hopefully cover their tracks. “When is security the lightest?”

“At planetglow—when Iria sets behind the moon. Maybe three hours.” 

“DAKA!”

The frightened shout from outside had Zeb moving forward, wishing he could blend in as well as his human friend so he could poke his head out and see what was going on.

“Damn,” Kanan cursed. “Zeb, try to sneak out in the confusion. Get the kids in the village ready to move.”

“What confusion?” Zeb asked, filling a pouch with charges from that special crate in the back.

“The one I’m probably about to start,” Kanan answered, disgruntled.

“Leave him alone!” 

The boy who had been introduced as Meen knelt next to a boy Hibbee’s age. The older boy was struggling to rise, a brilliant slash of red decorating his back. The stormtrooper standing over them held a _vibrrowhip_ in his hand, and Kanan had a very, very strong urge to wrap it around the thug’s throat. 

“Please, Cynic,” Hibbee called strongly, running from the transport and standing before the two boys. The stormtrooper’s name caused Kanan a momentary panic. Normal humans didn’t have names like that. “I’m sure Daka didn’t mean it.”

“Don’t get in my way—you’ve been warned before, too, little man,” the stormtrooper before them said, glaring at Meen. “I told him to move and he didn’t.”

Cynic’s very voice threw Kanan. It brought with it a dizzying flush of anger and fear, but also comfort and friendship… It was like being around the campfire on Kaller all over again—both before and after the world went to hell.

He tried to shake it off and focus. There were a group of about ten kids around the confrontation, all angry and afraid. Three troopers looked on from the mouth of the mine, a few more from the barracks. If they had a riot now, the mission was sunk. There was no way they could contain the troopers and load the kids in the middle of a melee. 

Calm was what was called for. He debated the merits of getting involved right now, but it was too early. A new arrival, stepping in to stop a beating? Suspicions would be raised too soon. Zeb stuck his head out the door, looked around, then loped with startling speed to the corner of the fence that circled the workers’ village. He was up and over before anyone even looked Kanan’s way. 

“What is going on here?” A stringy old voice rang out from the main building that served as the center of the complex. “Cynic, what are you on about?” This must be Jinta.

“This brat ran into me,” Cynic growled.

“Oh, did he?” the old man said, walking slowly toward the site of the conflict. “And that gives you the right to disrupt the loading of a shipment already past due?” He gestured to Meen and the storage crate he had just deposited at the receiving area. “Go on about your business, boy,” he ordered. Meen looked up at Hibbee for permission, then hared off back toward the transport when the older boy waved him on. Kanan nodded to him and the kid started unloading again.

“The kid is up to something!” Cynic cried.

“You are clearly becoming senile in your old age—” Jinta began.

Cynic tore his helmet off in outrage and Kanan again fought for his own calm. He’d been messing with stormtroopers for a while now, but it had been a long time since he’d looked a clone in the face, helmet down. If all clones had aged as badly as this one, they’d all die of old age soon. He was willing to bet, though, that Cynic’s aging came from cruelty, not years.

“Can’t you see they’re planning something!?” Cynic yelled, his eyes bright with either madness or conviction. “They’re probably readying another rebellion right now as we speak!”

Daka’s face stayed neutral and downcast, but Kanan saw immediately that the kid was definitely in on this. The rest of the children were ready to fight, whether they knew something was up or not.

“What they are readying is the rest of their work and _my shipment_ ,” Jinta proclaimed angrily. Sounded like he’d been in some trouble for the slow work the kids had been doing. _Good for them_. “Now take your paranoia and go back to your barracks. Ginnis will relieve you.”

“But—” Cynic began.

“I gave you an order, soldier,” Jinta barked, far more power behind his voice than Kanan had heard before.

And like a good little clone, Cynic obeyed. But he clearly didn’t like it.

Which was going to be trouble, of course, once the time came.

“Please get back to work, Hibbee,” Jinta asked, already heading for the main building again. “And see that Krollor looks after Daka’s wound.”

Kanan took a deep breath. _Crisis averted._ He looked back to where Cynic was slamming open the barrack door, pushing past the other gawking troopers. _For now._

**********

Zeb snuck his way through the village toward the building that Hibbee had marked “Temple” on the map. It… looked enough like the pulverized ruins of the Temple of Ashla on Lasan to make him swallow hard. He ducked into the shadows within and waited. Whatever was happening in the main square, he didn’t want to get caught out in the open. He’d let things either calm down or explode and go from there.

Five minutes later, a girl entered slowly, carrying an infant in a sling across her back, and waddling with a swollen belly, ready to pop. Zeb couldn’t stop a hiss of anger. To be children still, having to bring their own children to life in captivity! The girl startled at the sound and caught sight of him. She sucked in a deep breath. 

“It’s okay,” Zeb said quickly, knowing she’d never seen the likes of him before. “I’m here to help.”

She smiled hugely. “Hibbee did it,” she whispered. “He promised and here you are!”

Zeb grinned at that. “We haven’t done anything yet. I’m Zeb, by the way.”

“Sollos,” she replied. “What will you do to get them off our moon?”

“It’s more about getting _you_ off your moon,” Zeb explained.

“No.” Sollos’s eyes hardened. “We will not leave.”

“You haven’t got a choice.”

“KROLLOR!” 

The kid who’d been protecting Daka was helping the older boy toward the gate of the village. Zeb ducked well out of sight as two stormtroopers followed him. 

Time to start whittling down the numbers.

“Daka!” Sollos cried, hand over her mouth. She looked at Zeb as if for guidance.

So he gave some. “Go with them. Make sure the troopers follow.”

Sollos straightened her shoulders and headed back out of the temple. Zeb waited a few long moments, watching her head for the most intact building in the village. The creche, if he remembered correctly from Hibbee’s map. A tall, willowy child, hair in long looping braids, eyes tight with fear and worry, met her at the door and helped Daka and the younger boy inside. The troopers made to follow.

“You may not enter the creche,” the tall child said firmly. “Outsiders are forbidden within its walls.”

Surprisingly, the stormtroopers didn’t argue, just took up positions outside the door.

 _The better for me,_ Zeb thought, a grin on his face.

Climbing the creche was a little nerve-wracking, but the crumbling building held his weight long enough for him to drop down between the troopers and the door and slam the two of their heads together. Damn, he loved doing that.

He pulled them around the building and restrained both of them, hoping the rescue would go quickly enough that he wouldn’t have to deal with them again.

Sollos stuck her head out the door as he came back around. “Come in. Quickly!”

Zeb shook his head, understanding their concept of sanctity for the building. “I’m an outsider,” he began.

“No savior will ever stand outside,” Sollos told him, clearly quoting something. “Now quickly, before someone sees you.”

***********

Hera waited. She hated waiting. Especially now, when there was no way to keep track of what was going on. Prime had no cameras to hack into and Kanan was obliged to keep radio silence until everything was well under way…

_“I knew a Flineen girl, growing up.”_

Kanan still said so little of his life before the Empire, but she knew the look in his eyes when he’d said that. He’d known her growing up on Coruscant. In the Jedi temple. 

“Chopper,” she called suddenly. 

He was busy. Why was she bothering him?

Hera sighed. “Just open a channel to Fulcrum, Chop,” she ordered. Ytlinan was only a star system over, if they could contact someone there to find out whether the children would be welcome.

She thought of her own people. They would welcome any Twi’lek, any time. They were a people, no matter what the Empire had done to them. They would always protect their own. 

“This is Fulcrum.”

Hera turned to her contact. She had to hope the Flineen were the same.

************

Jida and a half dozen other kids unloaded the ship while Kanan kept a watchful eye. He was meant to be making sure they were doing what they were supposed to, but really, he was watching the guards.

There were three troopers at the mouth of the mine, and two each at the entrances to the factory, refinery, and main building. The village gate had another four, and the barracks and armoury were protected simply by the fact that the rest of the troopers were there, milling around or, he assumed, inside sleeping until their next shift.

He ducked into the transport and pulled out his comm. “Spectre 4?” Hibbee walked in with him, keeping an eye on the troopers and his own people.

Zeb’s gruff voice answered immediately. “Here, Spectre 1,” he replied. “Cross two off your checklist. The boy’s doing okay.”

Hibbee let out a thankful hum as Kanan looked out at the sky. The planet had been taking up more and more of it, as the clouds around it turned shades of purple and pink. “Maybe an hour to planetglow,” he told Zeb.

“They’ll clear everyone out and march them all back to the village,” Hibbee murmured.

“Get everyone in the village ready,” Kanan said into his comm. “Then get ready to wake up the second shift.”

Zeb sounded appropriately enthusiastic. “With pleasure. Spectre 4 out.”

Kanan looked at the way the ship was more than half-emptied. 

“Slow down,” he told Hibbee quietly. “We need enough room for you all. I couldn’t care less about the Empire’s circuitry.” He pulled Hibbee farther into the transport and handed him a small blaster and held out a thermal detonator, switching it on and off quickly.

Hibbee took the offerings, then singled out four of the kids doing the unloading, three girls and a boy. “You four return to the mine. We have it from here.” He looked out the door and whispered to them all. “Tell the rest of the youngers in the mine to be ready. Run for this ship when the time comes.” He didn’t say what time, but they clearly knew.

The kids ran off, the girls’ braids flying behind them, and a memory took Kanan by surprise.

_“Why don’t you look like a girl?” Six-year-old Caleb had asked the grey-skinned padawan who had introduced herself as Ponnos. “Older girls have…”_

_Kanan cringed as he remembered the gesture he’d made, cupping invisible breasts on his chest._

_But Ponnos had simply smiled. “Those are for our children, youngling,” she’d explained. “If you have no baby, you have no need.”_

_“So how do you tell each other apart?” Caleb had wanted to know. “If everybody looks the same?”_

_She’d been more patient than an adolescent girl had a right to be. “Girls wear braids,” she said simply, turning to show off the intricate rows of ropes that twined around each other on her head. She reached out to ruffle his hair. “Boys just let their hair do anything.”_

“Hibbee!”

Jinta’s call had the boy giving Kanan a scared look before he wiped his face clear and turned toward the main building. 

“Yes, Jinta?” he called, voice completely normal. The kid could be a great rebel spy, Kanan thought. Not that he’d wish that on anyone.

“Come here!” Jinta called, as if the command had been implicit in his first call. “It appears this shipment can’t be sufficiently prepared without you.”

Hibbee threw Kanan one more worried look and took off, jogging toward the building.

***********

“We cannot leave our moon.”

Zeb sighed. 

Sollos sat uncomfortably on the edge of a table in the main area of the creche. Six other girls in various stages of pregnancy, plus the girl (and he’d figured out girls from boys now) who was their medic, Meen, and Daka, all ranged around the room. There were also four babes. Meen sat playing with one and the other three were being worn by various girls.

The medic, Krollor, shook her head. “Sollos, we can’t stay here. The Empire will know what happened, and they’ll come after us.”

Sollos was adamant. “We will hide—we’ll go to the Vasty Out There.”

“They’ll burn it down to find you,” Zeb said quietly. All eyes turned toward him and he closed his own for a moment, remembering what he desperately wished he could forget. The fear that leaving Lasan would mean losing what it was to be Lasat...

“The Empire will not stop,” he told them. “Believe me. They will hack and burn and kill and there’ll be nothing left of your moon. Nothing left of you.” He looked at Sollos and said, as gently as possible, “Do you want to give your child life? Or your people death?”

Sollos’s eyes filled with tears. “We are all that remain of our people,” she cried. 

Zeb knew that feeling, too.

“Then you must live to remember.”

“Spectre 2, Spectre 4.” Kanan’s voice came over the line as a loud bell started clanging. “It’s time.”

Krollor helped Daka to stand, then took the babe Meen had been playing with and strapped the little girl to her own chest. 

“Don’t move until we tell you,” Zeb instructed. “Then run as fast as you can for the transport.”

“We pray for you,” Meen piped up, his far too young eyes shining. 

Zeb fought not to snort. Fat lot of good praying was going to do.

“Thanks, kid,” he said instead.

And then he slipped out into the growing planetglow. The world was still light, but with the quality of a two moon night on Lasan, all silver and magic. His own skin looked as grey as a Flineen’s, and Zeb took advantage of that, loping quickly to the fence between the village and the barracks and climbing the razor wire with ease.

“Waking up the second shift as ordered,” he murmured, a smile on his face.

**************

The skroggin' planetglow was falling again. Ghosts moved in the darkness, fed by the matta brew he’d drunk too much of after being told off by that idiot Jinta. With the ghosts came memories: fighting with his brothers, blowing away wave after wave of those damn clankers, camps on a dozen different planets with General Nguag and his apprentice… The moment the order came down, and he realized the kriffin' Jedi had lied. All lies!

Cynic sat on his bunk, listening to the troopers around him. Snoring, gaming, drinking. Not one damn one of them readying himself for the fight Cynic could feel coming.

A sound he hadn’t heard since his last battlefield broke through the noise around him—the roll-clank of a thermal detena—

Cynic was blown back over the top of his bunk by the blast, landing in a heap as the world beyond him went insane.

**************

“Well, they’re awake,” Kanan murmured, pulling his rifle. He started picking off the troopers who had been leading the kids back to their village, while Jida and the older kids started shoving people toward the transport. Flineen were fast, and the kids were motivated. 

“Seal off the factory!” one of the troopers cried, as another explosion rocked the barracks.

Kanan took aim at the trooper who’d given the order and fired, then spun to take out the troopers at the factory door—

Only to find that the children working there had taken care of them already. Two streams of kids now, and the transport was filling up. A blaster shot pinged off of the ship ten centimeters from his head, and Kanan ducked in response.

**************

“What is happening!?” cried Jinta, as the world shook around them, raising the dust even in the relatively clean main building. Hibbee trusted the youngers he’d tasked with incapacitating the guards outside.

He shoved the last two youngers out the door and saw them running for the transport before he spun around, brandishing the blaster the trooper had given him, startling the oldest older even more.

“We are ridding ourselves of you, finally,” Hibbee growled. He pulled out the detonator and primed it, pitching it into the clean room and slamming the door. “If you wish to live, try to outrun us.”

And then he himself ran, hoping he’d be out before the device he’d thrown did what the devices outside had already done. He made it, then saw Jinta make it out as well before the side of the building dissolved into nothing.

The blast slammed them both to the ground. Hibbee got up. Jinta didn’t.

“HIBBEE!”

Hibbee turned to the sound of Sollos’s cry, startling and falling forward, just as a bolt of energy passed through where he’d been.

“Get a move on!” the trooper, Kanan, called to him, eyes everywhere and rifle firing.

Hibbee picked himself up and ran for the village gate, where Sollos and the others were moving as fast as they could.

***********

Kanan kept firing, lifting his comm to his mouth. 

“Spectre 4?” he called. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” Zeb barked out.

The armoury picked that moment to blow, spectacularly. Every trooper in the area, every Flineen, was felled by it. The kids, resilient as hell, mostly got back up and sprinted for all they were worth. _Almost full_ , Kanan thought, looking at the kids flooding into his transport. 

“Spectre 2, I could use some extra storage space,” Kanan called.

“On my way,” Hera replied instantly.

“Headed your way, Spec—” Zeb cut off.

“Spectre 4, come in,” Kanan tried. Damn it. “Spectre 4.”

He turned around and singled out Jida, who was helping to squeeze as many kids in as he could. 

“That one crate in the back?” he told the kid. “The one I had you leave?” Jida nodded. “There are rifles. You’ve seen me use them. I want you and the other older kids to hold this door.”

Jida nodded, purpose in his eyes. A child behind him was already handing out the weapons. Not many, and goodness knew less than half the kids who now had them in their hands would be able to fire successfully, but it was all Kanan could do right now. 

He looked out and saw Hibbee and the rest of the kids from the village making their way toward them. A rifle blast erupted from the barracks area. Not Zeb’s Lasat rifle, either. None of the troopers he could see were moving, but clearly _someone_ was. Kanan turned back to Jida.

“I have to get my friend,” he told him. “Our other ship is coming.”

“We will hold here,” Jida promised him.

Which was the most he could ask of them. Kanan focused himself tightly, and disappeared into the planetglow.

***********

“What the hell are you?” Cynic asked, looking at the thing he’d just shot. That quick smack of his rifle butt against its head hadn’t done more than stun it for a second, but the blood now running down its arm from the blaster hit seemed to give it pause. “You’re a monster, you are.”

“You’re one to talk,” the monster replied, its voice a growl.

“Hurry!” 

Cynic spun around at the cry, seeing a bunch of those damn pregnant whelps and _Daka_ running as fast as they all could toward the transport that had landed just half a day ago. How the hell those brats had managed it, he didn’t know, but Cynic had told them all this was going to happen.

“Least I can fix one thing here,” he gritted, raising his rifle and aiming for Daka. He’d bring down that little rebel, damn it.

Kanan could see the clone, Cynic, standing in the light of the armoury fire. A mad glow was in his eyes, blood ran down his face, and he raised his rifle toward the group of kids Hibbee was herding. Kanan knew exactly who he was aiming for. 

No time to do anything else. With a deep breath, he reached out through the Force and shoved the clone back, hard.

The trooper’s shot went high, his eyes finding Kanan in shock just before he slammed into the box behind him, slumping to the ground. 

“Zeb?” Kanan called, running around the crates and finding the Lasat down, but awake. 

Zeb was looking at him in surprise. “How...?”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Kanan said, sighing. Because _of course_ Zeb had seen that—and had an inkling of what it meant. The whine of the _Ghost_ ’s engines cleared his head as he helped Zeb stand. “Right now, I’ve really had enough of this place.”

“No argument there,” Zeb agreed, just about half aware.

“Spectre 1, where are you?” Hera called.

Kanan threw Zeb’s arm over his shoulder and grabbed his comm. “On our way. Load the overflow and get back in the air.”

“Kanan—”

Something sharp and brutally hot slammed into Kanan’s back, knocking him and Zeb to the ground. Zeb rolled to the side, stunned, and Kanan struggled to keep focus, turning to face the clone. 

_I’ve been here before_ , he thought, his heart beating far too quickly at the angry face he’d seen versions of in his nightmares for years.

“Skroggin' Jedi,” Cynic growled. “I don’t kriffin' believe it.” He wasn’t steady on his feet, and his rifle yawed back and forth, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t kill both of them right here. 

And, just like more than a decade ago, Kanan couldn’t move. 

_Big-Mouth, coming at him with that all-business look of his. The one he had when he was fragging clankers._

“You traitors killed my brothers, killed the whole damned Republic,” Cynic ranted. He leveled his rifle. 

_“Run or fight, but do not just_ stand _there!” Master Billaba… Master!_

“Well this time, I’m going to make sure we get all of you.”

“ **NO!** ” Hibbee’s scream jarred Kanan out of his thoughts.

The Jedi apprentice’s mind mentally slowed the movement around him, pacing it out so he could make a clear decision. Just as he’d been taught.

Hibbee must have seen what was happening. He was running in from Kanan’s left, intent on blocking Cynic’s shot. Zeb had gathered himself and was readying his own shot on Kanan’s right, a shot that couldn’t be pulled for a last minute save. Cynic’s finger was tightening on the trigger, aiming for Kanan’s chest. 

A number of paths lay open to Kanan in that brief second, but only one real choice.

He brought his hand out, using the Force to blow Hibbee back and out of the way as Cynic and Zeb both fired. His chest erupted in flames. _Better than the alternative_.

“KANAN!”

Hera? 

************

Hera ran for the cargo hold as Chopper landed as close to the open transport as he could. She dropped the gangplank with a rifle in her hand.

“I’ll take who’s left!” she yelled. She didn’t see Kanan or Zeb or Hibbee Tak, and that set off all kinds of warning bells, but she had to focus on the mission or risk them all.

The cargo hold was full to bursting in a surprisingly short time, and Hera looked out at the planet-lit scene. The Imperial buildings were on fire, not a trooper was moving, and the last few Flineen children, some so pregnant it worried her, were climbing into the transport, which now held a reasonable number of kids.

But no Spectres.

_“Load the overflow and get back in the air.”_

Hera took a deep breath. At least in the air, she could try—

Chopper had found them and it didn’t look good and why wasn’t she up in the cockpit where she should be?

Hera ran for the cockpit as Chopper raised the ship.

He didn’t bring them up much, just so that she could get a look at the scene. A single trooper stood over Zeb and Kanan, who were lying on the ground, obviously hurt, and Kanan was just… frozen. She’d never seen him freeze. Not like this. Chopper zoomed in on the trio and Hera could see a stark fear in his face that was new as well.

“Come on, Kanan,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear her. But he might. “Come on.”

The trooper steadied his rifle, a blur headed for the trio and was blown back by Kanan’s hand, and Zeb and the trooper fired.

And Hera screamed as Kanan’s body jerked hard with the impact of the laser blast and then lay silent.

“Chopper, get us down there,” she demanded.

Well of course he was going to and he didn’t read anyone still alive except the three of them there—the _three_ of them, Hera-pilot—and all the many many people in the _Ghost_ and the transport.

Hera nodded silently and ran back downstairs.

**********

Images swirled....

Depa was there, but Hera, too. And Zeb. A huge blue ball, falling toward him. Clones in the silver light. And pain. Lots of pain. Lasers and explosions and children. Lots of children…

He floated for a long while, not bothering to sort things out, just riding crest after crest of pain. 

Suns, it _really_ hurt.

“Kanan?” _Hera_. 

“How much longer.” _Zeb._

“We should be there in an hour.” Hera was angry. Worried. 

_Pull it together, Kanan. Surmount the pain…_

He didn’t quite do that, but he did manage to open his eyes.

“Kanan?” Zeb again, softer.

Okay, so they were open, but he wasn’t quite processing. All he saw was white. He blinked a few times, hoping that would clear his mind if not his vision.

“Take over,” Hera murmured.

A callused, so-familiar hand stroked his cheek and it was like he suddenly regained sight, and Hera was there, looking at him. 

“Kanan?” she called again.

He couldn’t speak, but he could smile. A little. Something was wrong when he breathed.

Hera grinned back and didn’t cry. “We’re heading for Ytlinan,” she said gently. “It’s close. Hold on?” 

That was a question? It didn’t need to be a question, did it?

“Kanan?” An edge of panic had slipped into her voice, and Kanan knew he should do something about that. But nothing seemed to be working. Everything, in fact, seemed to be getting very, very dark…

Wasn’t Hilotti supposed to light the night…?

“ _Kanan_?”

*************

Zeb had been trying to ignore the smell of the ynalynak for five days with only minimal success. He’d refused it for his own wound, knowing that the blood and pain would come out of his fur a lot quicker than the smell of that awful stuff, but he still couldn’t ignore the amount of it that covered the body in the bed before him. His only two consolations were that Hera couldn’t stand it any more than he could and that Kanan was still alive.

The Flineen were a very low tech people who lived on a low-resource planet. Unlike their offshoot on Prime, the Republic never bothered with them and the Empire hadn’t either. So in their case, low tech was good.

Except that low tech meant no bacta tanks or healing field generators. It meant ynalynak, that noxious root they ground and made into a thick paste and spread on the blast burns on Kanan’s chest and back (and was stormtrooper armor made of _paper_?!), and too much waiting. It had been more than a day before they knew whether the root was going to help regenerate the damage to his chest enough for him to survive at all.

If Zeb had had any doubts about Hera’s feelings for the human, they’d’ve been quashed by the way she refused to leave his side for even a moment—refused to sleep, even, for fear of him slipping away while she slumbered—until the healer had declared that he would live.

The human. Only he was more than just a human, wasn’t he? The first time, when that clone had flown back into the crates, missing his shot on Daka, Zeb might almost have thought he was seeing things. But Kanan had clearly summoned the power of Ashla to move Hibbee to safety. He’d left himself open, knowing Zeb couldn’t make that shot before Cynic made his.

He’d chosen sacrifice. Which was exactly what a Jedi should do.

Zeb stood and stretched, glad the Flineen were such a tall people and valued headroom as much as he did. Apparently, young people here didn’t finish growing until they were much older. Hibbee reached the shoulder of the Chancellor of Ytlinan, who was about Zeb’s height—and only average height at that. The Chancellor had joked that the oldest younger of Prime would grow eventually, when he became an older.

The kids from Prime were welcomed back with open arms, Zeb was glad to see. He’d watched the people of Ytlinan gather around them, making sure those who were hurt or ill—or pregnant—were seen to, and simply trying to settle the others into their new home.

Zeb was uncomfortably reminded of the legends of Lira San. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a planet of Lasat out there somewhere that would welcome him as easily?

Hera rolled over on the cot across the room and the movement shook him from his thoughts. He walked over to the window, looking out at the forest beyond the edge of the little city, named for their little planet, that served as the Flineen capital.

“Not a bad day’s work,” he grumbled quietly.

“Even if I did get shot. Twice.”

Zeb turned around to find Kanan looking blearily up at the ceiling. Zeb gave him a minute to get his bearings.

“What is that smell?” was the first thing Kanan asked. In one of the old hero songs, his first thought would have been for the children. Or his mate. 

Zeb liked reality better.

“That’s what’s kept you alive the last week,” he explained. He saw the slight shock on Kanan’s face. “No bacta tanks here.”

Kanan nodded. “Good,” he murmured, clearly still half asleep. “I didn’t need any more memories anyway.”

Zeb didn’t know what that meant, or how to respond. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

Kanan turned his head and zeroed in on Hera as if it were instinct. “Is she okay?” he asked. “The kids?”

Zeb chuckled. _The hero is finally awake._ “She’s fine. All the kids made it out, though there’s a couple they’re worried about.” He gritted his teeth, remembering the girl Gollon and how her cough had filled the transport as they headed toward safety. “That refinery was more dangerous than the mine.”

Kanan didn’t process that, but Zeb didn’t really expect him to. He just let the human stare at his mate and deal with being alive. Zeb remembered waking from the blast on Lasan, unable to think at all for what felt like days before he could move. He jealously wished he’d had something as hopeful as this to wake up to, and suddenly realized that Kanan had probably been where he’d been.

“I’ve heard songs about the Jedi Knights,” Zeb began carefully. Kanan turned his head to look at him but said nothing. “Never met one before.”

“You haven’t now,” Kanan replied as he closed his eyes, old pain in his voice. Older than Zeb’s own. “I never actually got the chance.”

Zeb nodded. “Well these kids will,” he replied firmly, glad to see his companion smile as he fell back into sleep.

The window beckoned and Zeb turned back to it, watching a group of children, some Primers, some not, as they played a chase game in the square below.

Didn’t matter how many peoples the Empire tried to exterminate, there were always survivors.

And one day, those survivors were going to take the fight right back to them, and win.

************

Hera sipped the tea Kanan’s healer had brought with her (“to bring you peace in your waiting”) and wished its taste wasn’t ruined by the pervasive smell of that horrible root. 

_That horrible root that kept Kanan alive_ , she reminded herself.

Ytlinan was beautiful—the planet and the city. Chancellor Greeffee explained that the settlers who had left Ytlinan generations ago had fled a planet taken over by greed and war. The people had built more and bigger war machines, always striving for the ultimate deterrent. The Lost—the people who had become the Primers—had abandoned what they saw as a dying culture, reaching into the stars to find peace. 

The Flineen on Ytlinan found their own peace decades later, after nearly annihilating themselves. The few who remained forsook technology for a simpler life and eventually built themselves back up into a simpler civilization, one brought together by the memory of what they had nearly done to each other. 

Now the Lost were found and so were the rest of them. Full circle and home safe.

Hera sipped again—the tea really did help—and stared at Kanan. He had color now. Light-skinned humans could be alarming when ill or injured. Their skin went so grey and so pale, even waxy. Kanan had looked like that for far too long.

And while his skin was closer to his usual ruddy complexion now, he slept more than he didn’t. It would be weeks before he was fully recovered.

Hera’s mind insisted on replaying the scene on Prime over and over and over. 

“You knew what was going to happen,” she murmured. “You knew and you… let it.” She tried to be angry, and failed. “Why?”

“All life needs protecting,” Kanan whispered roughly.

Hera smiled at him, putting her tea on the table beside her and giving him her full attention. 

“I know,” she agreed. “But Hibbee wasn’t the one that trooper was aiming at.”

Kanan shook his head. “But he was the one who would have died.” He smiled softly at her, and she was gone. “A kid’s worth it, Hera,” he murmured, squeezing her hand as she slipped it into his grasp. “Any kid.”

“Just don’t do that again,” she scolded. “Please?”

“Not like I was trying to,” he argued. His eyes were already closing.

A knock at the door threatened to spoil his sleep and his eyes blinked open as Hibbee stuck his head in. 

“I don’t want to disturb,” he said diffidently. Hera knew he hadn’t been to see Kanan yet. Knew he blamed himself for what had happened, though Zeb swore he’d tried to convince the boy otherwise.

“Come in, Hibbee, please,” Kanan replied, fake energy in his voice that sounded real to anyone who wasn’t Hera. 

Hibbee pushed open the door to reveal that he was carrying a small bundle. A squirming bundle.

“She was born yesterday,” Hibbee explained, walking forward and bending so that they could both see her. Little wrinkled grey face and brilliant eyes more orange than her father’s. “Your healer felt I shouldn’t tax you with a visit that early.”

Hera watched the wonder dawn on Kanan’s face and smiled softly in response. In some other world, he’d make a great father.

“She wouldn’t have been taxing,” Kanan promised. “She’s beautiful.”

“Her name is Korron,” Hibbee told them. “It means free.”

Hera itched to reach out to the child. Maternal instinct was a difficult thing to quash in the face of one so tiny. “That’s a wonderful name.”

“We cannot thank you,” Hibbee said seriously, absently bouncing the child in his arms as she fussed. “There is no way.” He looked out the window and his own face suffused with joy and wonder. “You have brought us freedom. You have brought us home.”

“You did that yourself,” Hera told him. “All you needed was a little help.”

Hibbee frowned, gazing at Kanan. “But what you sacrificed. What happened…”

“Is what happened,” Kanan said gently. “It was no one’s fault but his, and I wouldn’t make a different choice if I could.” He seemed to be staring into the boy, asking him to believe him. “You came there to save my life,” he reminded Hibbee. “Would you have changed your choice?”

Hibbee smiled a tiny smile of relief. “No.”

Korron let out a bird-like squeak. And another.

“I think she needs something,” Hera offered.

“Better get used to having to find out what it is,” Kanan added. “That’s your job as Daddy.”

Hera’s heart hurt a little at the sound of that. Her father had never been Daddy. War was no place to raise a child.

And yet, Hibbee and Sollos had done it, in far worse state…

“Hera?” Kanan’s soft call drew her back and she realized she’d missed Hibbee’s departure.

“Any kid,” he repeated, squeezing her hand. 

She nodded.

And prayed he’d never have to make that choice again.

***********

the end

  
  



End file.
